Krim's Eden

A party of travelers to the small French island of Reunion just west of the great island of Madagascar were received, last week, in a luxuriant and exotic garden by Mohammed ben Abd-el-Krim, deposed "Sultan" of what is now French Morocco.

When his guests exclaimed that the garden is as lovely as Eden must have been before the Fall, the deposed Sultan quipped: "It is the difference between our religions, perhaps. Not until after my Fall did I have time for gardening."

That Mohammed ben Abd-el-Krim was wise when he accepted the French offer of exile in a private Eden (TIME, Sept. 20, 1926) was again demonstrated last week when some of the deposed "Sultan's" still rebellious fellow tribesmen in Morocco were once more thoroughly bombed by French airmen.

The present reigning (not ruling) Sultan of Morocco, Sidi Mohammed, is a youth who obligingly acts as the puppet of

France. When he recently visited France his dignity was thought to require that he should do his shopping without mingling with the crowds in Paris shops. For this reason the great Parisian department stores, including Au Printemps, kept their entire staffs standing about for several hours after the usual closing time, in order that the Puppet Sultan might shop alone, except for the presence of a retinue of some 50 persons.